


Thinking 'Bout Forever

by songsaboutdrowning



Category: Florence + the Machine
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 17:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songsaboutdrowning/pseuds/songsaboutdrowning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isa is drunk-tweeting about unrequited love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Isa's tweets on the 29 July.
> 
>   * im the first line in frank oceans 'thinking bout you ' in that t shirt .. I am OBSESSeD with that song and that t shirt #tornado
>   * .....or do you not think so far ... Ahead ..... Cos I been thinkin bout forever ....... 
>   * was gonna drunk text/email/call you and I stopped myself . #thinkingtwice (impressed with myself but still .. ❤ )... X 
>   * as if ..! Made that mistake a hundred times before . Not this time 
>   * If it brings me to my knees .. It's a bad religion 
>   * so bored of unrequited love .......... But it will continue to bring me to my fukin knees 
> 

> 
> This is my interpretation of it ok. Work of fiction obviously. Just goes to show that everything can be seen in a Florabella light if you want to.  
> Since there is no news about this one way or the other, I'm assuming that Florence and James have broken up in this fic.

The hotel room bed feels gigantic for someone as small as Isa. She sits all the way to one side, making sure to leave enough room for Florence when she gets back from her night out with the boys.

Isa didn't feel like joining them tonight. She decided to stay in, take a bubble bath and have an early one. Her broken heart craves solitude and silence, so much so that she doesn't even have music on.

Ok, that's a lie. The tv is on in the background but Isa doesn't really know what channel it is; it's the news, but she's neither watching nor listening. She's tweeting one of her best friends about the pains of unrequited love. Some tweets slip through, because she forgets to mention Jeremy, and everybody can see them. She even forgets fans can read that stuff. Alcohol will do that to you.

She bought a small bottle of Malibu from the American equivalent of an offy and drank the whole thing with a sumptous dinner of... pretzel sticks. The bottle now sits in the bin under a newspaper because she doesn't want Florence to see it. They had a pact neither of them would drink for a while, but Isa was missing the numbness.

As she's composing her next tweet, her phone buzzes in her hand, startling her.

“Hello?”

“What's this I see about you being in love and not telling your best friend?”

Florence sounds completely sober and reasonable, which makes Isa feel like even more of a failure. In case Florence ever discovered about her little crush, Isa's had an excuse readily fabricated for weeks. It should be easy enough to spiel it out despite being drunk.

“Uhm... I met someone when I came to the States in June. A friend of Jeremy's. But it's a very...” she struggles to find the right words, “one-sided... thing.”

_There is no friend of Jeremy's._

“What's her name, then?”

Isa hadn't thought this far. Her eyes fall onto the stack of magazines on her bedside table. Somehow, Cosmopolitan doesn't sound quite believable for a person's name, so she opts for Marie Claire.

"Claire," she says, cringing to herself.

"I'm 5 minutes away, Isa," Flo explains. "When I get there, you'll have to tell me why I'm only discovering this now, ok?"

“Ugh, god... I hope I fall asleep before then.” Mostly because the haziness from drinking will slow down her ability to make up more unnecessary lies, and right now, Isa needs to be quick-thinking.

“Then I'll wake you up. You can't escape me. See you later.”

-

Florence has taken the key card away with her, even though this is technically Isa's room. She knew Isa would be in bed and cared enough not to make her get up to open the door. But Isa is already up when Florence comes in. Kicking her shoes off to one side, Florence can hear her coughing in the hotel bathroom.

“Isa?” she calls. “Do you need anything?”

But she doesn't really wait for a response before barging in and taking in the scene. Isa's slumped by the toilet and Florence is not entirely sure if the wheezing is from throwing up or crying. She's definitely been crying. The black streaks speak for themselves.

In an unusual show of readiness and maturity, Florence grabs a glass from the sink and half fills it with tap water, then goes back into the bedroom to find some sugar next to the teabags. She stirs the concoction and brings it back to Isa, who is just staring on and hasn't said a word yet.

Isa drinks slowly, in little sips, and avoids eye contact like her life depends on it. When Florence holds out a hand to try and brush her lilac hair away from her face, though, it sets her off like she's been slapped.

Florence has seen Isa cry before – when you've known someone that long, it's bound to happen sometimes – but it's never really been quite so haunting and desperate.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Isa shakes her head. “I'm so sorry, Flo... I'm sorry that I've been drinking.”

Florence has already forgiven her. But if she's getting herself drunk over love, it must be bad. Isa's generally very casual and breezy about relationships. This isn't like her.

“That's the least of my problems, really. I just wished you could have talked to me, you know. I thought we told each other everything.”

_Like hell we do,_ thinks Isa. She's been in love with Florence for months and it's been months of not telling her things. Months of relying on a couple of discreet friends that wouldn't break her confidence. Months of dropping hints that just fell on deaf ears because that's just how Florence is.

Isa gets up and makes sure she's steady on her legs before going over to the sink to wash the taste of sick away with some Listerine. She brushes her teeth, too, for good measure, all the while with Florence standing right behind her and not saying a thing.

Oddly, it doesn't feel awkward that Isa got caught drinking. The thing that feels awkward is that Florence is clearly uneasy in the role of the comforter because it's generally the other way around. Florence who thinks the world is going to end just because her hat and her handbag are not quite _exactly_ the same shade of burgundy, and needs Isa to show her that, rejoice!, she _will_ after all survive... that same Florence now has to deal with a weepy best friend and be “the stronger one”.

When Isa turns around from the sink, she finds Florence tentatively opening her arms, inviting her in for a hug, but she just shakes her head and fights back more tears. Isa moves back into the bedroom with Florence in tow, and goes over to her side of the bed again, where she's been careful to turn the Marie Claire face down, just in case Florence makes the connection.

“How long has this been going on? Isa, I can't see you like this.” Florence sits at the foot of the bed, a little hurt that Isa is avoiding any kind of physical contact. Then again, Florence shouldn't be feeling like she's the one needing a hug when Isa is breaking down right in front of her.

Isa curls up on her side so that Florence can't see her face. The lie has been going on for less than an hour, and already it's tiring her out. It would be much easier to say, it's _you_. The tweets were about _you_. You're the one I can't stop thinking about – you're the one who thought it was a good idea to kiss me “to celebrate gay pride”.

Still, she replies. “A couple of months. Not long.” Weird how you can know someone for years and wake up one morning and realise you feel more than just friendship for them.

“And why is it one-sided? Couldn't Jeremy arrange a date or something?”

Isa analyses the possible answers to that question. _She's straight_ – yeah, as if that's ever stopped her before. _She's just gone through a breakup_ – that is way too close to Florence's real life, she might guess there is no Claire. Eventually she settles for the safest option.

“She's with someone. It's ok, Flo. It'll pass.” It would be more convincing if she could get to the end of the sentence without her voice breaking.

“Oh, Isa.” Florence climbs into bed behind her and spoons her. Broken hearts never get any easier, but she really does wish that someone gave her Isa a chance. She has this public persona that's loud, bubbly and mischievous, but Florence knows that hidden under a good few layers, Isabella is also sensitive, sweet and really kind-hearted.

“I'm sorry, honey.” Florence continues. “I can't make her return your feelings but I'm here for you, always. You should never feel like you can't tell me things. Ok?”

Isa turns around to face Florence and snuggles even closer to her, when she realises Flo hasn't even changed out of her outfit. “I'm gonna get black smudges on your dress, Flo, why don't you put your jammers on?”

“I don't give a fuck about the dress, frankly,” Florence declares, holding her tighter. “Sleep safe.”

Isa buries her face in Flo's shoulder and wonders how she can believe that she's exactly where she's meant to be, when at the same time it feels like torture.

Flo's lips touch her forehead, just once.

Maybe she's just meant to be tortured.

=

When Isabella wakes up the next morning, Florence is already showered and dressed in her running gear, her one exception to her otherwise old-fashioned sense of style, and she's sitting on “her” side of the bed reading something. She must have left the room and come back and Isa managed to sleep through it all.

“Hey,” Florence says, when Isa stirs. “How are you feeling?”

“Alright, actually.” Her head is not spinning or pounding, which is more than she was hoping after last night. Her eyes do sting a fair bit from all the crying, though.

“Good enough to run? I'm looking for some place that does American pancakes, to reward ourselves after,” Florence says, pointing to the guidebook in her hand.

As if Isa could ever say no to Flo's hopeful smile. “Good enough to run.” She confirms. “I'm going to go shower and make myself feel human again.”

She scuttles out of bed in her oversized nightshirt and into the bathroom; at the very last minute Florence calls out, “I'll get this Claire out of your head if it's the last thing I do.”

“Who?” 

It comes back to her two seconds too late – the words have already left her mouth. Florence furrows her brow, but Isa hastily adds, “Yeah, let's hope so. Thanks, Flo.”

=

A couple of minutes into Isa's shower, her laptop comes out of hibernation, accompanied by the sound a Skype call. Florence looks up from her reading, and scrambles to the desk to see what's going on.

“Isa! Jeremy's calling you!” she shouts, but Isa probably doesn't hear her through the water. Florence accepts the call, and waits for Jeremy's video to pop up on screen, grinning and waving to the screen like a child and not even feeling a little bit self-conscious.

“Oh, hello!” Jeremy exclaims, noticing it's not who he was expecting. “And how is the beautiful Florence doing today?”

Florence giggles. “Isa's just in the shower. She'll be out in a minute.”

“Well, that's good, because I wasn't even sure she was still alive. She stopped replying to me last night out of the blue.”

“Ah, sorry, that was my fault.” Flo explains, still not at ease with being so technological – it doesn't come as natural to her as it does to Isa. “I came back and we were having a chat. Between us... I'm a bit worried about this Claire thing, you know.”

“Who's Claire?”

Florence feels like someone threw a bucket of freezing water at her. Somehow, though, she recovers surprisingly quickly. “This _hair_ thing. Her hair's falling out 'cause of too much bleaching, and...”

“Hiiiiiii Jeremy!” Isa shouts out, even though she's not in sight yet. She steps out of the bathroom, hair still dripping wet and leaving slight lilac trail marks on the standard-issue white hotel towel.

Florence gets out of the chair to make room for Isa, still slightly numb at what she's just discovered. _There is no Claire._ And whenever this phone call ends, she's going to have to face Isa about it.

She retrieves the notepad, also standard-issue, from the bedside table, and pens in a note in her elegant cursive – _Come get me when you're done, I'll be in my room_ – then she goes to prepare for what's probably going to be one of the hardest conversations of her life.

  
  



	2. (conclusion)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Florence confronts Isa after learning that she made up a crush on an imaginary girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your likes/reblogs (on tumblr) and kudos/comments (on here)! They really make my day and I appreciate all the encouragement and the faith you have in my writing. xx

Florence paces around her room, unable to sit still. She cannot remember that Isa has ever lied to her before. Hidden things, yes _,_ flat out lied, never.

There is no reason for Isa to pretend to be in love. That part has to be true; she got drunk and spilled some personal things that maybe she wasn't intending to otherwise. Most of all, the level of pain and desperation that Florence saw in her eyes could not be faked.

Which leaves only two other explanations. One, is it's someone Flo knows. Two... it _is_ Flo, but she doesn’t dare think it and give herself false hope. With her luck, it's probably someone in the choir, or their tour manager or someone else they see every day; Florence will have to watch Isa consume herself with unrequited love, all the while wishing that she could be the object of her affection instead.

She did try to make her understand, didn't she? She kissed her on pride day and put the picture up for the whole world to see; she passed her that blasted Frank Ocean song, which Isa is now obsessed with – too bad she is associating it with pining for _someone else._

Florence had wanted that to be their song. She thought the lyrics were pretty self-explanatory, but maybe it had been _too_ subtle for Isa to catch.

When Isa finally knocks on the door, dressed in her 'tornado' t-shirt and cyclist shorts, Florence can't help but admire her toned legs - legs that have been wrapped around her in more than the occasional dream. Flo herself has changed into a rust coloured playsuit, and Isa notices the contrast immediately.

“What happened to running?”, she asks.

“We need to talk,” Flo explains, never one to beat around the bush. “You lied to me.”

Isa opens her mouth, but no words come out.

“I don't even want to know what the truth is, as much as I want to know _why_ you lied to me.”

_You've had a good run, Isabella,_ Isa thinks. _She didn't find out for 2 months, that's more than most people can say._

The instinct to bolt back towards the door is strong, but it would take her nowhere. Physically, maybe, but she'd just be delaying the confrontation.

She can't bring herself to look at Florence, but she does manage to say, in a distant, broken voice “The what and the why are pretty much the same.”

“There is no Claire, Isa, that much is clear.” Florence says, managing to neither look nor sound angry. “I don't know why you'd ever think that I wouldn't be supportive. Don't you trust me?”

Isa's eyes stay fixed on a random point in the room, and Florence has to strain to hear the murmur that comes from her lips.

“It's _you_.”

Florence feels slightly dizzy, like the world could come crashing down on her at any minute, so she envelops Isa in her arms - partially to steady herself. This is as much for her benefit as it is Isabella's.

Isa, on the other hand, thinks this is just a consolatory hug. If it was accompanied by a sound, it'd be “awwww”. Aww, you poor thing, in love with your best friend, aren't you _cute_. Sorry I can't be your girlfriend, Isa, but let's stay friends and turn this into an awkward mess!

The tears threaten to surface again, tears of anger this time, as well as humiliation. Isa tries to wiggle herself free but Florence holds tighter – she may be skinny, but she's a whole foot taller than Isa and that gives her an advantage.

“How long has this been going on, again?” Florence asks, lost in her own catastrophic vision of the world.

Isa would answer, but somehow finds herself saying “Why?” instead. She does manage to step back a little, and look at Flo directly; she's surprised to be meeting watery eyes on the brink of spilling over, and Flo's breathing is a little too fast, like she's trying to stifle down a sob.

“Because. I just wanna know how long we could have been together by now.”

Isa doesn't even realise that she's stopped breathing until she tries to inhale and finds that her body is not responding. She just stares at Florence, who's giving her a little sad smile and nodding her head. Whether she's nodding to herself or to Isa isn't clear, but what the gesture means is. It means _yes, it's true, I'm in love with you too_. The secret really is out in the open.

Isa feels a pang of pain, for even when Florence smiles, her eyes always seem to be filled with infinite sadness. She's always worrying about what could have been, the time they wasted by not being together, while Isa is already projected towards the future, all the things that _can_ happen now that they've spoken, now that they both _know_.

“Oh my god... the song!” Isa says, in a flash of recognition.

“Yeah...” Florence grins, admitting that she just used one of the oldest tricks in the book. Except instead of a mixtape she just made one random song recommendation.

“That was for me!?” Isa is still incredulous.

“That was for you.” Florence's smile extends and for a minute, even her eyes look serene. She's on the brink of giggling in that overjoyed, childlike way of hers.

They would probably end up arguing over which one of them is the person who “thinks far ahead” and which one isn't, so Isa decides that for now, she will just curl her fingers around Flo's. They have held hands a million times but it's never been quite so charged with electricity. She can feel a buzz down the length of her arm, reaching into her stomach.

“Thinking about forever, eh?” She asks, looking up, a smirk appearing at the corner of her mouth.

Florence loses all composure.

“Please can I just kiss you now?”, but the words die on her lips as Isa stands on tiptoes and gets there first.

Kissing Isa sober is not the same as kissing Isa drunk; Florence can allow herself to take her time and taste her, her real breath, not the fumes of the most unhealthy mix of drinks. She tastes like happiness and honey – her lip balm, probably – and despite having kissed her fair share of girls, none have been so soft and full-lipped as her best friend. Above all, none have given her such butterflies. It's one thing to do something for fun; it's another to finally taste someone you've been in love with for ages.

Her tongue caresses along Isa's top lip and Isa responds in kind. Untangling their fingers, Isa lifts her hand to cup Florence's cheek, accidentally (or maybe not) grazing her nipple through the thin cotton of her playsuit, a touch that reverberates throughout Flo's entire body. As much as there is a bed conveniently placed just two feet away, Florence forces herself to be an adult about it, and take things in small steps.

Unwillingly, she detaches herself from Isabella and asks, “You still want those pancakes?”

“Oh yeah, make it sound like _I_ was the one wanting pancakes, won't you.” Isa scrunches her lips at her.

Florence leans down to kiss Isa again, cherishing the way her small body fits in her arms. Isa closes her eyes and wraps her arms around Florence's neck, alternating light kisses with big smiles. They can't really snog for too long, as Isa just bursts into a dazed grin every few seconds.

At this rate, they won't be leaving this room any time soon. Thankfully, Isa is good at taking charge of situations - when she's not drunk and disorderly, that is.

“Right, if we're not going running I'm changing out of this and wearing something nicer. You wait here. Don't move.”

Florence couldn't even if she wanted to. Stunned into place, she watches the fluorescent tie-dye print of Isa's t shirt disappear out the door, and brings her fingertips to her lips, thinking her smile can't possibly get any bigger.

She shakes her head, looks at the ceiling, and breathes a sigh of relief.

=

In the other room, Isa leans with her back against the door, retrieves her phone and texts Jeremy – so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands this time.

It was only half an hour ago they were talking on Skype, and she had explained her disappearance the night before. Jeremy had laughed at her cover story. He'd been pretty encouraging throughout the weeks Isa had been coming to grips with falling for Florence, but he seemed to think this was the equivalent of rock bottom; he had promised to find her a date. Or two. Or a one night stand. Just something that would push Florence out of Isa's mind.

Isa doesn't need that anymore. She hadn't really wanted it in the first place; she was still holding on to the hope, or maybe the faith, that one day she would be Florence's.

The text she sends just reads: _No dates please. I'm taken :)_


End file.
